On This Day in Jewish History: December 1, 1970

.

On this day in 1970, comedian and comic actress Sarah Silverman was born in Bedford, New Hampshire. As a self-proclaimed agnostic, Silverman’s humor and on-screen persona locate her on the long line of culturally Jewish comic figures whose sweet voice and broad smile can often belie her sharp tongue and sometimes sexually charged routines.

.

Silverman first performed stand-up comedy in 1987 at age 17 and after graduating high school moved to New York where, after one year of college, she focused full-time on her show business career. Three years later she was hired to write and perform on Saturday Night Live but the gig was short-lived and she was gone from the show one year later. Still, since 1992, her career has been remarkably wide-ranging and she has worked as a writer, stand-up comic, sketch comedy performer, and an actor on television and in film and music videos.

.

She has guest-starred on The Larry Sanders Show and Star Trek: Voyager and is known to film fans as the nagging girlfriend of Ned Schneebly in School of Rock. More recently, her voice co-starred in Ralph Broke the Internet and on the streaming talk show I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman.

.

For three seasons, she starred in The Sarah Silverman Program, for which she was nominated for a prime-time Emmy Award. Among her many TV and film appearances, perhaps the bit that got the most attention was her song-on-video addressed to at-the-time boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel, in which she sang “I’m Fucking Matt Damon,” the song performed as a duet with Damon.

.

The author of a 2010 memoir, The Bedwetter, Silverman has made comic hay out of her anxieties and she has been open about her personal life and struggles with depression. She has also taken on a very public political profile since the 2016 Presidential election during which she campaigned for Bernie Sanders and then Hilary Clinton.

.

In 2020, she was again outspoken in her support of Sanders. Silverman’s sister Susan is a writer and rabbi living in Jerusalem who has been a member of Women at the Wall. Sarah Silverman lives in New York City.

.

Text Source:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sarah-Silverman

Image Source:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/sarah-silverman-you-can-t-swear-in-front-of-a-child-but-there-are-school-shootings-1.3711298